Back in the Day
by DownToTheSea
Summary: After an encounter with Adam, Helen and Nikola are thrown back in time to Victorian Oxford. While trying to find a way home, they run into a few familiar faces.


**A/N: Prompt - Nikola and Helen time traveling. Sort of a very loose AU of Into the Black, but mostly just time travel shenanigans.**

* * *

Helen's ears were ringing, blinding white light filling her eyes and making it impossible to see.

In one hand she still clutched the device she had taken from Adam after their fight, pointless though it was. She should have known he'd have a backup. If Nikola hadn't overloaded Adam's equipment when he did, there would have been no telling where in time Adam could have escaped to. As it was, Helen was going to wait until she had examined his body herself before she got too comfortable thinking the threat he posed was passed.

For that matter, Helen had to wonder why she wasn't dead herself. Nikola had thrown himself at her right before the blast, some kind of shield already forming around him, but whatever he'd cooked up surely wouldn't have been enough to protect them from an explosion of that power. As soon as he'd made contact with her she'd felt an energy surge, then the strangest sensation of falling until they'd landed… wherever they had landed.

She could feel Nikola's arm still wrapped tightly around her and moving slightly, for which she was grateful. At least they had both survived.

"Helen," he mumbled, face close to her ear. "You know I've always said sparks fly between us, but next time could we maybe tone it down a little?"

"Somehow I doubt we caused that." Her voice was scratchy and rough. "Are you alright?"

"Sure, I mean, it kinda feels like somebody tossed me off a building, but it's not like I haven't survived worse. You?"

She stifled a groan. "Similar."

"Are you sure?" he pressed. "'Cause, you know, last time I checked you didn't have insta-healing plus super invulnerability, and – "

"I'm fine, Nikola," she said shortly. As a matter of fact, her head was throbbing and her side ached, but there was no reason for him to worry until they figured out the more pressing problem of what had happened.

"If you insist." He was letting the matter drop – wisely, but a little too quickly, which made Helen suspect that if and when they got home she was in for a long bout of Nikola hovering around, making her tea and giving her massages.

Which actually didn't sound _all_ bad, now that she thought about it.

"Can you see anything?" she asked.

His arm shifted around her as he sat up. "A little," he said after a pause. "It's coming back."

Helen eased herself up as well, and a few moments later she was able to make out vague, indistinct shapes all around her. Wherever they were, there was a warm golden light suffusing their surroundings, most of which seemed to be a dark, rich shade of brown.

And there was a very familiar smell in the air – books, Helen thought. Old books, surrounding them on all sides. They must have been in a library of some kind.

"Oh my God," Nikola whispered. Apparently his vision was coming back faster than hers.

"What is it?" she hissed.

Pulling her a little over to the side, Nikola leaned them both against a railing of some kind. "Oxford," he said quietly.

A minute later, Helen was able to see it for herself.

They were in the main library, on the balcony in one of the reading rooms. Below them, a row of desks stretched out in the middle of the room, down to an arched window that was letting in the light Helen had seen earlier. Bookcases lined the walls, with more scattered here and there on the ground floor.

"Yeah, and check out those cravats," Nikola said, nodding towards the students walking around the room or bent over their books in study. Even with her still-blurry vision, Helen could see their attire was much too formal for a modern university student.

"This is _our_ Oxford, Helen, or pretty damn close to it."

Helen eased away from the railing, pulling Nikola with her. She could hardly believe they'd really been carried all this way back in time, but it _had_ been Adam's plan to travel back to around this period. This was a detour, but it wasn't an entirely implausible side effect for the destination to be thrown off by the power overload.

It was lucky no one was on their balcony, or they would have already been seen. Helen wasn't eager to explain her modern weapons, cell phone, or the fact that she wasn't wearing a corset to a nineteenth century gentleman. Or Nikola's hair. That defied explanation on a good day.

Uncurling her hand, she took a second look at Adam's device. She had assumed it was just a dummy to distract them, but now…

Nikola peered over at it. "You think that's what brought us here?"

"I don't see any other explanation," she said, turning it over in her hands. "The question is, can it take us back?"

"Aww, you don't want to relive our glory days?" Nikola's mouth twitched.

"Nikola, I hardly need tell you all the catastrophes this could potentially cause. If we change the past – "

"Yeah, yeah, we end up in an alternate universe where we're both dead, Protégé runs the Sanctuary, and bell-bottoms never went out of style."

She leveled a look at him. "Nikola."

He widened his eyes, arranging his face into a "I'm taking this very seriously, look at me being all mature, I have no idea why you're mad at me" expression, then stretched his hand out. "Let me take a look."

As Nikola examined the device, Helen took another glance over the balcony. They couldn't stay up here for long. Sooner or later they would be discovered, or the library would close down for the night.

"Good news: it's not too broken," Nikola informed her when she returned to his side. "Bad news: it's kind of broken. We probably shorted it out with the heat of our passion. Or, you know, the explosion. Either way, it's gonna take some time to fix it."

Helen grimaced. That was exactly what she hadn't wanted to hear. "In that case, we need to find someplace safer to work."

"True," Nikola said, then gave her a somewhat lingering once-over. "And we need to find a way to blend in a little better."

* * *

Nikola hurried over the Oxford grounds, skirting around the edges of the campus while keeping his head down and trying as best he could to smooth his unruly hair into something a little less noticeable. (Also less devilishly handsome, but after this was over he would see if Helen was amenable to messing it back up again, and that might soothe the pain a little.)

He had been unanimously voted least likely to draw attention in his current state, so he was heading out to get them both something to wear that was more period-appropriate than their current outfits while Helen stayed behind, keeping hidden in the library and working on Adam's time travel device.

The plan was to get to his old rooms – on the way here Nikola had passed someone reading a newspaper and managed to catch a glimpse of the date, confirming his suspicions that their past selves were indeed attending the university right now. There he would be able to steal a suit for himself before swinging around to the Magnus house to get something for Helen.

Leaves crunched underfoot, their fading red and orange the last vestiges of autumn before the winter set in. It was warm for the season, with more people than he would have expected wandering the grounds. So far he had caught a few odd looks, but he was moving fast enough that apparently no one wanted to expend the effort to stop him.

He reached the hall he'd lived in all those years ago undeterred, and made his way toward the rear of the building. The source blood experiments had taken place during their final year at Oxford – Nikola well remembered the rest of the Five having to cover for him and his missed classes during his transformation, and the following struggle to find him a food source that wasn't a living human being.

Not exactly pleasant memories. Still, that was before their little group had been shattered, and the Five had all clustered protectively around him, keeping his secret and helping him find a solution. Even amidst all the pain of that time, those memories he treasured.

That, plus after it was all said and done, discovering his new powers had been pretty awesome.

He still remembered exactly how high he had to jump to catch the ledge outside his window, exactly the angle he needed to swing himself up at, and the amused satisfaction that he'd turned his crappy room assignment at the back of the building into a positive. If he'd lived in one of the front rooms, he never would have gotten away with doing this so often. The only thing missing was the grooves his claws had worn down in the stone over the years – he wasn't a vampire yet in this time. A few moments later, he had landed silently in the rooms he used to share with Nigel.

"Ow," he groaned, ruining his quiet, graceful landing as he stepped right on a sharp piece of glass that some asshole hadn't bothered to clean up. A brilliant genius asshole, he amended as he considered where he was.

The glass had been from a broken vial, which used to live on the lab table taking up about half the available floor space. Nikola had to pick his way around various other obstacles strewn about the floor as he wound around to the closet, and spared a moment to appreciate Nigel for never complaining about the mess.

Not that Nigel was without his flaws. It was just as well they had arrived a few years before the source blood experiments, otherwise Nikola would have expected Nigel to jump at him out of thin air at any moment. He used to pull that all the time. Invisibility was a really annoying superpower in a roommate.

After a few minutes, Nikola had found a suit his old self wouldn't miss too much and changed into it. He turned to leave, then thought better of it and hurried over to the washbasin, bending down and pouring what was left in the jug over his head.

Spluttering, he pushed his hair out of his eyes and wrung it out a little before smoothing it down and running a comb through it. There, now he looked like a proper inhabitant of the Victorian era. A damp, rather untidy one, sure, and he was missing the mustache, but it was the best he could do on short notice. Hopefully he wouldn't run into anyone he knew.

He gave his hair one final pat before slipping out of the room. Now that he looked passable, he might as well leave by the front door.

As he shut the door and magnetically locked it from the outside, he heard footsteps behind him and immediately took his hand off the door, pretending to search through his pockets for a key.

"Nikola?" Helen's crisp voice sounded from behind him, and he started to turn, his brow furrowing. How had she –

His heart leaped into his throat when he saw the bright glint of gold out of the corner of his eye before she was fully in view. Golden hair, eyes that had seen a hundred years less history than the Helen he knew now, and the same amused half-smile.

So much for not running into anyone he knew.

"H – Helen?" he stammered. Her perceptive eyes seemed to take in everything that was wrong with his appearance as he reached for the accent he used to have. After all these years, it was more difficult than he would have expected – apparently he'd lived in Canada too long.

"Are you quite alright?" she asked, peering at him with concern. Even at the height of his infatuation back at Oxford (which, to be fair, had been pretty much his entire time here), he had never been quite this much of a mess in front of her. At least, not that he remembered.

Nikola stopped himself from saying "oh yeah" just in time. "I – I'm perfectly fine, Helen. Thank you. Uh… What are you doing here?" It was blunt, far too blunt, and he winced.

But instead of the weird look he had been expecting, her cheeks turned pink. Nikola abruptly remembered that John's room was on the same floor as his. At the front of the building, naturally, but there was a convenient back entrance close to Nikola's side of the dormitory for anyone who didn't want to be seen leaving through the front door.

"Oh," he said, feeling his own face getting warm. "Right. Ah, yes. I was just leaving, please don't let me – interrupt."

He stared at his unpolished shoes. He had gotten used to seeing Helen with John back then, and as hard as he'd tried to be happy for her, it had still hurt. Now he was remembering just how much.

And it was even worse now, because he knew what John would do to her in a few years, and he suddenly wanted to spare her all the heartbreak that was coming. But he had promised his Helen before he left to help her avoid changing the past, and he knew she was right. It didn't make it much easier, though.

"Are you certain you're feeling well?" Helen asked, still looking worried. "You look rather ill – " She stifled a laugh. "And Nikola, what on earth did you do with your mustache?"

Nikola was about to tell her Nigel shaved it while he was asleep – that _had_ happened once, much to Nikola's chagrin – but he had to come up with a reason that would include his past self showing up with mustache intact the next time Helen saw him.

"James," he blurted out. "He's discovered a way to cover up facial hair as well as apply it. I am, uh, helping him test it out." James had been a veritable master of disguise, and was really quite an insufferable nerd about it for a few years. Not that Nikola was one to talk. This was about as believable an excuse as he was going to get.

"Indeed," Helen said, skeptical. "How very intriguing."

"Yes," Nikola agreed. "But if you'll excuse me, I need to get to the library before it closes." She wouldn't see anything unusual in that, as Nikola frequently retreated there to do some quiet thinking and studying. He started edging away from Helen.

"Of course," she said, inclining her head. "But before you go, may I ask if our appointment still stands for tomorrow?"

Nikola blinked. He had no idea what she was talking about. "Of course," he said anyway, because there was no way he would ever miss out on spending time with Helen. "I look forward to it."

With that, he escaped, leaving Helen to look after him with an odd expression.

* * *

Before he had left, Nikola had used one of his impossibly sharp claws to peel a bit of metal off a nearby lamp and twisted it into a crude tool of sorts for her to use. It made trying to piece the inner workings of Adam's device back together easier, but not by much.

"Bloody hell," she whispered for the hundredth time, more out of general frustration than anything else. Even if they were able to repair it, whether or not it would function again was up in the air. It needed power, which Nikola could give it, but Helen still wasn't entirely sure how Adam had operated it. She would hate to get it started again and accidentally send them a thousand more years into the past.

She had pushed herself back into a small alcove, as far out of sight as she could manage. So far no one had disturbed her – no one had even come up to her balcony, but the sun was getting low in the sky. Where _was_ Nikola?

A horrible thought entered her mind. What if Adam hadn't been caught in the explosion? What if he had somehow followed them here? He had had access to all kinds of Praxian technology designed specifically for killing vampires, and if Nikola wasn't expecting him, he could easily be caught off guard.

If Adam had followed them, if he'd found Nikola… Nikola could be out there now, hurt or even worse, all while Helen was stuck in this bloody library. She swallowed, her heartbeat loud in her ears as she remembered Afina's tomb and Colombia. She'd almost lost him twice this year, and there was no way she was risking a third time.

Her mind made up, she got up to follow him, but before she could move any farther, she heard someone coming towards her up to the balcony. She tensed, trying to shrink into the alcove as best she could. A profile came into view and Helen let out the breath she'd been holding, a wave of pure relief coursing over her. It was Nikola, and she uncurled and moved towards him.

He had done an admirable job of blending into the period. Even that bloody awful mustache was there, fixed to his face in a remarkably natural way.

He turned towards her as she approached, his eyebrows going up, but before he could ruin her relief at seeing him safe by saying something sarcastic, she had wrapped an arm around him and pulled him tightly against her.

True, he would never let her live it down. But being endlessly annoyed by Nikola was preferable to finding him dead somewhere a hundred years in the past.

She held onto him for a minute longer, then pulled back. "Not a word," she warned.

Nikola looked dazed. "Helen," he said. "I – ah – are you – "

Helen frowned. There was something about his voice…

Then her heart sank. She peered closer. There was no question about it. This wasn't her Nikola, this was Nikola from the past. He had barely aged since then, but somehow this Nikola looked so much younger than the one she knew. In her blind relief, she had missed it.

"Oh, damn," Helen muttered, her voice flat, and then, because that wasn't enough: "Bloody hell."

He had gone rather red as he took in her current outfit, his eyes lingering a little too long on the holster strapped to her thigh before he stared resolutely at the bookcase just past her shoulder, and Helen had to smirk despite herself. Some things never changed.

She sobered quickly, though. As soon as he recovered, that fount of curiosity would burst forth, and even flustered, Nikola was still brilliant, and he knew her far too well for her to lie convincingly.

Even if she managed to come up with an explanation for why she was here and dressed like this, she had to ensure he mentioned it to no one, least of all her past self. God only knew what that would do to the timeline.

She _could_ explain the whole situation to him – Nikola was fond of theorizing about the future and he would probably believe it as soon as he saw the modern technology she was carrying. But as much as she loved him, telling his past self time travel was possible was a very unwise idea if she wanted to return to her own timeline and find it the way she'd left it.

In fact, in her desperation, she could see only one good way out of this.

Helen grabbed his shoulders and kissed him.

Nikola's eyes widened, but he leaned into the kiss. A second later, he gave a little sigh against her mouth and closed his eyes, wrapping his arms around her and holding her against him.

Helen broke it off a few moments later, dropping one hand from his neck and letting her forehead touch his.

"Helen," he whispered, sounding enraptured.

Helen winced. She hated to do this to him, but she couldn't see any other option.

She leaned forward, pressing her lips to his again while she thumbed her stunner to the lowest setting, and pulled back just as she aimed a shot at his leg, muffled by their bodies. Nikola froze where he stood, a delirious smile still plastered on his face, before falling forward straight into Helen's arms.

"Sorry, Nikola," she whispered as she pulled him over to a chair and lowered him gently into it. "Sweet dreams."

She took his pulse, watched the steady rise and fall of his chest, and nodded. He would have a headache when he woke up in a few hours, but nothing worse. With any luck, he would think he'd fallen asleep in the library and had a lovely, if somewhat scandalous, dream about kissing Helen.

She was still watching him when she heard the sounds of another person approaching and she swore under her breath – getting caught with an unconscious Nikola would be even worse than getting caught alone – but before she had time to ready her stunner again, the Nikola she had been waiting for came into view.

"What the hell – " he muttered, taking in the scene with a raised eyebrow. "What'd you do to me?" He hurried over to examine himself with an offended look.

"I stunned him," Helen said stiffly. "He'll be fine when he wakes up. I'm sorry, Nikola, but he would have figured everything out otherwise."

Nikola kept staring at himself. "Weird," he muttered. "If I touch him, is the world going to end or something?"

"I'm sure some kind of time creature will come and carry you off."

"You're so British." Nikola poked his shoulder. "Weird," he said again, absently passing Helen something that looked suspiciously like one of her father's medical bags.

"I got you clothes."

Helen opened the bag and immediately rolled her eyes. "Really, Nikola? You don't think I'm going to miss this?"

"Oh, was it that important to you?" he asked innocently, grinning.

"I never thought you were such a sentimentalist," Helen fired back, just to get under his skin. She knew full well that he could be a complete sap on occasion. "Turn around."

He flipped on his heel obediently, still grinning. "Is this my punishment for being sentimental?"

"Yes." She backed up as far as she could into the alcove before stepping into the dress, pulling its heavy crimson folds over her. Buttoning it herself in the back proved to be as difficult and frustrating as it always had been, but she refused to ask Nikola for help – he would have enjoyed it too much.

Luckily, Nikola had included a wrap to go along with it, and between that and the dress all of Helen's modern clothes were covered up entirely except her long coat, which she took off and stuffed back into the bag.

"You can look now," she informed him, even though there would have been nothing to see anyway.

He turned around eagerly, and for a moment Helen thought she was going to have to catch him too. His lips parted, his eyes glazed over, and she knew he was thinking about an autumn day over a hundred years ago, just outside the Oxford theatre.

"Focus, Nikola," she said, though gently. After all, it brought back memories for her as well.

"Right," he said distantly, before blinking and coming back to the present. He extended his arm. "Where to now?"

"My house." Helen had already determined this. "As far as I know, hardly anyone ever used the attic. We should be safe there for a while. And we're both quite adept at sneaking in and out," she added dryly.

Many, many times in their university days, the two of them had stayed up far into the night studying, either in one of the university libraries, their laboratory, or Helen's house itself. For the former two, Helen had become quite experienced at getting back home unseen; in the latter case, Nikola turned into an expert in climbing out Helen's window and dropping into the garden below.

Nikola gave a sigh. "Ah, good times. I was terrified of your father, you know."

Helen slipped Adam's device into the bag and followed him across the balcony. "What can I say, Nikola? You're – "

"An acquired taste, so I've heard." Nikola turned his head to grin at her. "At least you seem to have acquired it."

She took his arm. "Don't let it go to your head."

* * *

They made it to Helen's old house without incident. In broad daylight, the window was rather out of the question, so Nikola pressed his hand to the door and it swung open, squeaking a little. He grimaced.

"You should get that fixed," he whispered to her as they slipped inside, gently closing and locking the door behind them. Thankfully, no one was about – Helen's father had only employed a single maid and a cook – and they tiptoed up to the attic without running into anyone.

Helen closed the door with a sigh of relief. Pretty soon they would have to venture out again for food and water, but for now they were safe. She glanced over at Nikola. If he was worried about being stranded without access to his plasma mixture, he wasn't showing it.

If they got desperate, he could always sneak out of town at night and find a deer or something, as he'd done a few times before. He would complain – he _hated_ the taste – but it would keep him going.

Of course, Helen was hoping they wouldn't be spending too much more time here.

She and Nikola spent most of the evening huddled in a corner of the attic, jammed in between an ancient desk that had belonged to Helen's grandmother and an untidy pile of trunks all balanced precariously on each other. They spoke only in whispers, passing the time travel device back and forth as they worked to repair the damage.

Nikola eventually raided her grandmother's desk, taking out a piece of parchment and a pen and ink bottle, somehow still useable, and scribbling out equations and diagrams on the dusty floor beside them. He filled up sheet after sheet until the ink ran out and Nikola stared mournfully at the half-written equation in front of him.

"I really miss computers," he said.

Helen was busy attempting to reroute a piece of wiring. "I miss functional tools," she gritted out.

"And I miss your wine cellar," he added pitifully. "I can't work in these conditions, my dear."

Helen looked over at him. "We have wine here, Nikola."

"Really?" His eyes lit up.

So as soon as night fell and the sounds of movement in the house died away, Nikola snuck downstairs and got a bottle of wine, two glasses, and some food for Helen. He returned with such a triumphant expression one would have thought he'd just slain a dragon.

"Your father had _great_ taste, Helen. Check it out." He turned the label towards her, but Helen could barely even see him. It was dark in the attic – there was only one small window and it was a cloudy night, and of course they couldn't light any candles or lamps.

"I'll take your word for it." Helen had already put down the device – it was pointless to work on it when she couldn't see anything – and gratefully accepted the glass and food he handed her. It was just a few slices of bread and some fruit, but Helen was so hungry by that point she might have been willing to try the deer herself.

Nikola sat back down next to her and poured himself a liberal glass of wine, swirling it around pompously, as if he weren't hunched in a dusty nineteenth-century attic.

"Cheers," he whispered, and clinked her glass.

"Quiet, Nikola," she admonished.

"Oh come on, Helen, everyone is asleep by now. Live a little."

As if on cue, a floorboard creaked underneath them and to the right. Helen's room.

"Not everyone," she said.

"Probably can't stop thinking about me," he said airily.

Nikola had told her about his encounter with her younger self. She had been frustrated, of course, at the possible damage he could have caused – but he _had_ tried to avoid doing any harm, and it was rather amusing, she had to admit.

"Doubtful," Helen said. "I can remember it now. I thought you got drunk and shaved your mustache, or Nigel did, and you were wearing one of James' false ones until it grew back."

Nikola let out a shocked gasp. "I'm offended, Helen, truly. And here I have such golden memories of _your_ run-in with past me."

Helen looked at her glass. The faintest light from outside shone reflected in the wine, rippling gently. "About that," she said quietly. "I am sorry, Nikola."

"Don't be." He smiled at her. "It wasn't that bad of a headache. And it was a _really_ good dream. Though I think this might be why I have such a thing for you as a brunette."

Helen stifled a laugh, managing to turn it into a muffled snort.

"You should get some sleep," he said.

"Nikola," Helen began, frustrated.

"No, no," he interrupted. "Don't pull the stoic hero thing with me. We got blown up today, and I won't shut up until you get some rest, end of story. You know how annoying I can be."

A long-suffering sigh was the only answer he received.

"See?"

"In that case, shouldn't you do the same?" Helen challenged.

"I can see in the dark," he pointed out. "I'll work on this for a while longer first."

"Very well," Helen said. "But only if you promise me you'll be asleep by the time I wake up."

"I swear by this fantastic bottle of wine," Nikola said, tipping back his glass and finishing it off.

Sighing with fond annoyance, Helen leaned against his shoulder and closed her eyes. She was certain she wouldn't get any sleep at all, but heaviness came over her as soon as she relaxed against Nikola, and soon enough she sank into sleep.

* * *

The next day passed in much the same fashion. Nikola had stayed true to his word, and Helen woke to find him snoring against her neck. She took over the repair work on the device for a few more hours, his steady breathing a soft rhythm in her ears.

Around mid-morning, Nikola slipped out of the house for another couple of hours, returning with breakfast for Helen and a disgruntled expression.

"Ruined," he said, picking at a small bloodstain on his cuff. "How did the ancient vampires do it…"

"They wore a lot of dark red and black." Helen raised an eyebrow. "I assume you've had something to eat yourself then?"

He wrinkled his nose. "One of your dreadful local fauna. I can't wait until we get back home to civilization."

"On that topic," she said, handing him the device. "How's it looking?"

"Mmm." Nikola examined it for a while. "About as good as we're gonna get."

"Very heartening."

"Oh sorry, it's just that I like to start my day a little differently," he said in an acerbic tone. "A nice, soft, _warm_ , bed… Breakfast that doesn't involve running around a damp forest… Being able to kiss you without feeling like a butcher shop. You know, the basics."

Helen rolled her eyes, although she had to second the part about the soft bed. Leaning over, she kissed him on the cheek. "Better?" she asked, amused.

"Marginally." He cracked a smile that said otherwise. "Now, you might want to step back while I charge this."

"I'm not sure that's wise – " Helen began, but Nikola's hand was already crackling with electrical energy.

It was over a few seconds later. Thankfully, nothing exploded, although Nikola looked rather unsteady afterwards.

"How many times have I told you not to overtax your abilities, Nikola?" With a frustrated sigh, Helen took his arm before he could fall over.

"It's just so much fun being electro again," he managed with a wavery grin. Opening his hand, he took another look at the device.

"Now to figure out how to use this thing."

* * *

Unfortunately, that proved to be more of a chore than they were expecting. In all their work with it, they had never run into any kind of interface, and neither of them could determine how in the world Adam had intended to use it.

After a few hours, Nikola let out an annoyed hiss and jumped up, leaving Helen to continue poking at it while he paced half-circles around her. (There wasn't room for a full circle.) Finally, he went to the window, no doubt intending to stare dramatically out of it, but when he got there his entire posture shifted.

"Oh my God. Helen, come look at this." He gestured her over eagerly.

A little weary, Helen got up and went over to join him. "What is it, Nikola?"

"Look." He pointed down, into the walled-in garden at the back of the house. Their two younger selves sat on a bench on the small lawn, under a tree just shedding its last leaves. On Helen's lap was a heavy, leather-bound book, which she recognized as one of the many volumes containing language and history that they had dug up during their quest for knowledge about the ancient vampires.

Nikola sat next to her, consulting another two books and occasionally writing something in them. Helen recognized those, too – his early journals that would eventually become _A History of Vampires_.

He said something that made past Helen laugh, and gave her a little smile.

"Look at us, Helen. We're _adorable_." Nikola sounded gleeful.

Helen shook her head, oddly aware that she and her past self were both wearing identical exasperated grins. "Is that so?"

"You more so than me, of course."

"I've come to expect such humility from the great Nikola Tesla."

"I'm surprised we're not in the library, though," he went on, ignoring this dig.

Helen turned her attention back to the young them, now exchanging glances out of the corner of their eyes as she read something aloud from the book.

"That is odd," she agreed. "Perhaps they wanted to enjoy the weather." The library had been one of their favorite haunts – Nikola in particular had often gone there, she had always suspected, to find some peace and solitude as well as study.

She froze, an idea occurring to her. She looked over at Nikola and saw the same expression on his face.

"Neural interface," they said at the same time.

"Ooh, the Praxians came up with some awesome stuff," Nikola added, holding the device up and scrunching up his face in what Helen was sure was supposed to be a serious look of concentration. She stifled a snort.

"If thinking about home was the only requirement, we would have activated it already," Helen pointed out after a moment. "There must be another component." She paused, thinking. "Before we were sent here, you created an energy shield of some kind."

"As I heroically covered you with my own body," he added.

"Yes, after that," she said sarcastically. "And you must have been thinking about our Oxford days…"

"Hard not to, with an escapee from our past running around talking about traveling back to it."

"And we ended up here. Do you think you can replicate that shield?"

Nikola gave her a look. "Helen, please."

"Of course." She rolled her eyes. "Forgive the insult." Nodding towards the device, she took Nikola's hand.

"Well?"

Nikola hesitated, his eyes turning to the window again. Beneath them, their own voices drifted up to them on the breeze, reciting the language of the ancient vampires in unison.

They had been so young then, so eager, so ignorant of all the pain they would endure in the years to come. Helen knew how strong the temptation to change things was, because she could feel it herself.

"We can't change the past, Nikola," she said softly. "You know as well as I do that it could have disastrous consequences, well beyond anything we could ever set right. They'll make it through."

"I know." His voice was quiet, and for a few minutes they were silent, listening for one last time to the echoes of the distant past.

Nikola squeezed her hand, nodding at her, and she nodded back.

"Take us home."

* * *

"I really don't know what the universe has against us," Nikola complained as Henry continued to ignore him. "We get back, there's a crisis. We deal with that, there's another one. Then we split off from the government – another crisis brewing, no doubt."

"Welcome to the Sanctuary," Henry said absently, then turned back to his computer. It was getting late, and he no doubt wanted to be visiting his pregnant girlfriend instead of working on the Sanctuary firewall.

"Hmph," Nikola said. He could tell when he was being ignored. Not that he cared most of the time, but it rankled a little anyway.

Before he could come up with something appropriately biting in reply, the intercom buzzed.

"Henry, is Nikola with you?"

"I'm right here," Nikola said, sighing theatrically. "Ill-used as ever, but persisting for your sake, my darling."

"In a great mood, doc," Henry called.

"I can see that. Nikola, would you come up to my office, please?" The line went silent before Nikola could respond.

"Somebody's in trouble," Henry said, perking up slightly.

"Ooh, I hope so," Nikola said with relish. He shut his computer down and jumped up.

Henry looked rather nauseous. "Ewwww," he muttered.

"I'd say see you later, but I'll probably be _tied up_ the rest of the night." Nikola grinned.

Henry made a gagging noise as he left.

* * *

"Hey, Helen," Nikola called as he entered her office. "Tell me – " He stopped dead in his tracks, staring. "Oh."

Helen was standing in the middle of her office, her arms crossed and a small smile on her face. The lights were off, but there was a fire in the grate, filling the room with a soft flickering light. She was wearing the crimson dress they had taken from the past, and it almost seemed to shimmer in the firelight.

"Are you going to stand there gaping all day, or are you going to join me?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

Nikola closed the door softly and advanced until he stood next to her. "What's the occasion?" His throat was dry.

She smiled, lifting a hand to his waist. "Our anniversary, of course."

"Which one?" Nikola took her other hand in his, lightly stroking her fingers.

"Does it matter?"

"No," he whispered as they started to sway. He couldn't hear any music, but they had never really needed it. "I guess not."

They danced in silence for a few minutes, holding each other close. Nikola bent his head, pressing a soft kiss to Helen's neck.

"You know, if we're role-playing, I have a few cravats left over," he murmured against her skin. "I'm sure you could put them to good use."

Helen laughed, her voice vibrating through him. "That won't be necessary," she said, smirking. "At least, not tonight."

Nikola grinned as she pulled him into a kiss.


End file.
